After loving the Millenium series when it came out a few years ago, I felt like I came pretty late to Jo Nesbo. It feels similar in it’s dark/gothic/nordicness, more like if Stephen King wrote crime novels rather than paranormal/science fiction type horror like he does.
I guessed the plot really early (unusual for me to be honest) but then with all the weird twists and turns as you can imagine the plot doesn’t really unravel unless the last chapter – and still kept me interested the whole way through.
So what’s the point of all of this crime novel stuff anyway? Is it to keep a sense of thrill throughout the book? Escape from the boredom of our own lives? I wonder sometimes about people who read nothing but this genre, as they can be a bit stressful/hard going at times, almost like a constant adrenaline rush – surely it’s like any drug, something that you desensitise to over time? who knows, as per usual I’m likely pontificating with no real epiphany to arrive at – At the end of the day they’re great novels for flights, public transport, and this week especially short tube journeys…
I went through a phase where I was really into the crime/murder mystery books. To be fair it was mostly because my local library seemed to only stock those books, but I still enjoyed them.
It is sort of weird how popular they are. I got to the point where they seemed to read like the equivalent of a paint-by-numbers books. (muder-by-numbers?) It just seemed like the same basic things happened in all the books.
By: The Nate Gatsby on 01/14/2012
at 11:44 am